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The makers, and the makings of a revolution?

“With this movement, the whole (consumer) culture is almost inverted. An individual starts with what they want to do or make, then tries to figure out what they need to learn to achieve this.”

Jenn Dodd

a jokingly self-described maker groupie

In an unmarked upstairs lair in Kensington Market, 10 or so people — men, mostly — tap on laptops in an open room or mill about a small kitchen. A passageway running through the space is lined on one side by four 3D printers and on the other by a narrow ledge crammed with curious trinkets.

At hacklab.to, members pay monthly dues to access collectively owned equipment, such as the 3D printer above. (Adam Evenden)

When asked what he’s working on, one of the laptop-wielding men utters dryly, “plotting world domination.”

The quip is apropos. Hacklab.to — one of a few hacker collectives in Toronto — has been levelled with charges only somewhat less sinister in the past.

“When we first started, we’d get calls from journalists asking if we break into people’s computers,” says Paul Wouters, a founding member of the five-year-old collective.

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“And even still, we’ll sometimes get guests walking in here being like, ‘I think my girlfriend is cheating on me, can you hack her phone?’”

But for this community, it’s “hacking” as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology intended it: taking an object designed to do one thing and making it do something else — basically, whatever you want it to do.

A case in point: one member bought, reverse-engineered and affixed to a microcomputer a defunct LED display sign formerly used by the TTC, then hung it above hacklab.to’s staircase. Now, when members swipe their cards, their names flash across the sign.

More generally, $50 in monthly dues lets the nearly 50 members use the collectively owned 3D printers, laser cutter and assortment of hand tools, with which they tinker, create small objects and electronics, “bring dead technology back to life” (someone, apparently, once printed a knob to fix a busted oven) or test prototypes.

Clearly, this type of hacking is motivated by a sense of curiosity and play, and the outcome is a kind of geek’s paradise — or, as spots like hacklab.to are increasingly dubbed, a “makerspace.”

It is difficult to hang a precise definition on Toronto’s maker movement, in which makerspaces are hubs. However, it loosely encompasses a swath of do-it-yourself-types, including computer programmers, crafters, designers, engineers, artists, scientists and entrepreneurs.

Broadly speaking, a maker lives by the philosophy that every individual is capable of learning the skills to make things, rather than relying on so-called experts or a top-down system of production. Makers often resent the proprietary nature of large electronic or manufacturing companies, believing data should be open-sourced (meaning anyone can freely access a product’s design or blueprint).

“It’s all about the realization that we don’t have to take things as they are,” says Heather Payne, founder of the Ladies Learning Code, a Toronto-based non-profit that empowers women to cultivate technical skills. “Whether or not someone wants to put a maker label on themselves . . . it’s the fact of knowing we can do better than accepting what’s given to us.”

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The shrinking cost of technology has facilitated a swell in maker culture. A 3D printer can be bought for around $500, compared to nearly double that just five years ago. Micro-sized computers such as the popular Raspberry Pi, which can be used to control hardware like an iPhone or 3D printer, currently retail for around $30. Greater acceptance for open-source digital systems means people are spared thousands of dollars in software costs. And social financing tools such as Kickstarter, designed to empower the entrepreneurial “little guy,” are a definite boost to the movement.

Both in Toronto and internationally, maker culture is growing stronger — so much so that Chris Anderson, former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and CEO of a drone manufacturing company, has touted the maker movement as the harbinger of a new industrial revolution, one that will make the tools of factory production available to all.

‘Technology isn’t magic’

The movement’s origins can be traced to San Mateo, Calif., where in 2006 the editors of MAKE magazine held the inaugural Maker Faire, a platform for self-identified makers to network and showcase their work to the public. Since then, Mini Maker Faires have cropped up in cities worldwide, with 56 held in 2012.

“People should know that technology isn’t magic,” says Eric Boyd, the effervescent thirty-something who is both co-director of the faire and hacklab.to’s president. “It’s possible to understand how all these things work. Even if you couldn’t build, say, a cellphone as shiny or fancy (as a large company), you could build one if you wanted to.”

“With this movement, the whole (consumer) culture is almost inverted,” adds Jenn Dodd, Boyd’s co-director and a jokingly self-described maker groupie. “An individual starts with what they want to do or make, then tries to figure out what they need to learn to achieve this.”

Diverse group

The players in Toronto’s maker scene are diverse, and many are hobbyists. They range from startups prototyping hardware to crafters holding knitting circles.

Some are looking to bridge a digital divide across economic groups: Our True North 3D Printing Ltd. is an emerging startup focused on making maker technology accessible in rural and northern Ontario communities, and the Toronto Public Library is addressing barriers to technological access by piloting their own makerspaces at the Reference Library and the new Fort York branch.

Existing makerspaces have a modest but budding presence in the city: Site 3 coLaboratory is a member-led makerspace near Bloor St. and Ossington Ave., offering workshops with titles like “Fundamentals of Metal Milling.” InterAccess, an artist-run centre, provides programming that encourages people to explore the intersection between art and technology.

And the Institute for a Resource-Based Economy, the non-profit that launched the Toronto Tool Library last spring, is planning to open an official makerspace — replete with a workshop and machine shop — in Toronto’s east end.

“For me, the maker movement is about independence and sharing information,” says the institute’s executive director, Ryan Dyment, a former KPMG accountant and passionate maker.

“Our vision for society is to expand the concept of libraries and encourage access, rather than ownership.”

Despite all this growth, Toronto’s scene has yet to compete with maker hubs like San Francisco, where the movement has deeper roots and is less fragmented, partly because the community is galvanized by the nearby Burning Man Festival, the epic DIY extravaganza held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

Dodd and Boyd hope Toronto’s faire will help integrate the local maker scene and get the wider community more involved — a key maker tenet.

With the push to democratize production, it’s difficult to assess where big business fits in. Some companies, such as Ford, RadioShack and Pepsi, have seemingly embraced the movement by sponsoring faires.

The Toronto Tool Library received donations from several large retailers, including The Home Depot Canada Foundation, which gave $3,000, plus $1,000 towards tools. Canadian Tire also contributed.

“They don’t see us as a competition, and I don’t advertise in that way,” explains Dyment.

Whether the maker movement will begin to substantially encroach on conventional manufacturing systems, or, on a smaller scale, whether devices like 3D printers will soon be found in every home, remains unclear.

“From what I understand, we’re just at the beginning stages of this technology,” says notable labour market expert Tom Zizys.

“Could things scale up from a hobbyist and experimentation level to an actual commercial level? Given how jaw-droppingly quickly technology is changing, in some ways, I can’t see why not.”

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